Saturday, January 21, 2012

Egyptian miracle girl Dunia Reda, 6, says she did
not see ‘who saved me’ but added 'it must have been an angel'.

A girl who survived after plunging six storeys from her apartment block in Sharjah last Thursday said an angel broke her fall.
Egyptian miracle girl Dunia Reda, 6, said: "I was falling fast at
first, and very scared, but then I felt someone hold me like I was a
baby. I didn't drop as hard as I thought I would."

“

I was falling fast at first, and very scared, but
then I felt someone hold me like I was a baby. I didn't drop as hard as I
thought I would

”

Dunia Reda

Dunia was still conscious after hitting the ground. She said she did
not see "who saved me" but added "it must have been an angel".
Her father Reda added: "I believe her, it was divine mercy. She keeps telling me about it, she is very excited."
Dunia said she lost her balance after opening a window and leaning
out of her building in Nabbah area to chat with children playing
downstairs. The window was shut and locked as usual, Reda said, but
Dunia "couldn't resist the sounds of children playing and wanted to say
hi to them".
She had got up while her mum and baby brothers were still asleep.
Reda was in Dubai at the time, at around 10pm last Thursday. She
managed to unlock the window and slide it open.

Image Credit: Supplied

Watchman Nurul Anwar rushed to help Dunia after she fell from sixth floor apartment window.

‘I will be careful'
"I won't go near windows again, it's dangerous. I will listen to
my parents," she said. Reda added: "We always keep the front door and
windows locked. Dunia is a very social girl who loves to play outdoors
with friends; she wanted to see the children playing that night."
She was rushed to Kuwaiti Hospital in Sharjah, he added. Dunia is
now recovering from her injuries at Al Qasimi Hospital in Sharjah. When
XPRESS visited her recently, she appeared to be doing well, playing
games on her father's mobile phone and chatting with him.
He said: "Dunia was given a bracelet with ‘Allah' written on it
by her mum hours before the fall. She refuses to take it off now, even
when she is getting her dressing changed. She is a very spiritual girl,
always smiling."
In the Nabbah neighbourhood people are still talking about the
death-defying incident. "It's unbelievable indeed. Every day I am
stopped by strangers asking me to describe how it happened," said
Mohammad Nurul Anwar, the watchman of her building.
Dunia's fall comes on the heels of a string of fatal plunges
seeing children toppling out of windows or balconies from high-rises in
the UAE. At least 18 children fell last year, with about half a dozen
deaths reported in separate incidents. Legal action was taken against
parents accused of neglect in at least one case, with authorities
warning against leaving children unattended or alone at home. Awareness
campaigns highlighting the risks are planned as government officials try
to introduce new safety rules and punishments to help prevent such
accidents from happening.

Dedicated follower of fashion

ROSMAH MANSOR likes to be introduced as the First Lady of Malaysia, but for Sydney fashion designer Carl Kapp, she is his first lady of shopping.

The wife of the Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, is known across Malaysia simply as FLOM (First Lady of Malaysia), and is Kapp's biggest customer, having dropped an estimated $100,000 in his boutique ordering garments during a private holiday in Sydney a little more than a fortnight ago.

''She was absolutely gracious and very easy to deal with,'' Kapp told PS this week, agreeing she was nothing like the woman often portrayed in Malaysian media for her allegedly extravagant lifestyle.

In recent months, Mansor, who stayed with her husband in the $20,000-a-night penthouse at The Darling hotel, has been forced to deny reports she had bought a $US24 million diamond and a $US200,000-plus crocodile skin, bejewelled Hermes handbag. Kapp, who has a keen eye for such bags, having worked for Hermes, said he did not see any such handbag when he met her.

What her critics in Malaysia will make of her Sydney shopping spree, first reported on local fashion blog Frockwriter, is yet to be determined.

Kapp, who became suspicious of the identity of his mystery VIP customer when his Oxford Street store received a flurry of calls requesting valet parking for her limo, said he was being flown to Malaysia next month with a collection of ''toiles'' for Mansor to try on before completing her massive order of 61 dresses, pants and tops.

All made from the finest silk and in a variety of exotic colours and prints, Kapp said his new muse had ''a very good eye for colour and she likes a lot of prints''.

Super Kerr now a model citizen

Most of the sodium in our diet comes from salt, or sodium chloride. Sodium has many important functions in the body, including:

transmitting nerve impulses

contracting and relaxing muscle fibers

maintaining proper fluid balance.

But
Americans get much more than they need—3,400 mg of sodium per day, on
average. (See the chart below for recommended intake.)The kidneys
regulate the body's sodium level by getting rid of any excess. But if
there's too much sodium in the bloodstream, the kidneys can't keep up.
Excess sodium in the blood pulls out water from the cells. As this fluid
increases, so does blood volume. That means more work for the heart,
increased pressure in the blood vessels, and often, eventually,
stiffened vessel walls, chronic high blood pressure, and an increased
risk of heart attack or stroke.

Current recommended intakes of sodium for healthy adults by age group

Group

Adequate intake (AI) of sodium*

Salt equivalent

Upper limit (UL) of sodium intake**

Ages 19-50

1.5 g/1,500 mg

3,800 mg, or 2⁄3 teaspoon (tsp.)

2.3 g/2,300 mg (equivalent to 5.8 g/5,800 mg, or 1 tsp., salt)

Ages 51-70

1.3 g/1,300 mg

3,200 mg, or ~½ tsp.

Less than 2.3 g, but a precise amount has not been determined

Ages 71 and over

1.2 g/1,200 mg

2,900 mg, or ½ tsp.

*The average amount needed to replace sodium lost daily through sweat while providing enough other essential nutrients.

**UL may be higher for people who lose large amounts of sodium in sweat, such as athletes and workers exposed to extreme heat.

Some
people are especially sensitive to sodium—their blood pressure rises
and falls directly with their sodium intake. That puts them at increased
risk for cardiovascular disease, even if they don't have high blood
pressure. It also means that they particularly benefit from restricting
sodium intake.

Those most prone to salt sensitivity include:

the elderly

African Americans

people with hypertension

people with diabetes

people with chronic kidney disease.

What about the rest of us?

As
many as one in three adults in the United States has high blood
pressure, also called hypertension. Many more have "prehypertension,"
which means that while they don't have high blood pressure yet, they're
likely to develop it. Many studies have shown that blood pressure is
directly related to dietary sodium, so it makes sense for at-risk
individuals to cut back. But what about the rest of us?

The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that limiting
sodium intake should be just about everyone's concern. In a 2009 study,
CDC researchers concluded that 70% of American adults should aim for a
sodium intake of no more than 1,500 mg per day. People who fell into
this group of about 145 million people included:

everyone over age 40

all African Americans

people with hypertension.

Some
public health experts believe the 1,500-mg-per-day cap should be
extended to everyone. Others say that proposal ignores other factors
influencing blood pressure. Almost everyone agrees that we couldn't
reach the 1,500-mg limit without reducing the amount of salt in
processed and prepared foods—the main source of dietary sodium.

Sources of sodium

Most
of the sodium we eat comes from restaurant meals and processed foods,
including canned vegetables and soups, pasta sauces, frozen entrees,
luncheon meats, and snack foods.

Many
studies have investigated links between sodium intake, blood pressure,
and cardiovascular disease. Some of the most compelling evidence has
come from the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) trials.

The first DASH trial showed that a diet rich in the following could lower blood pressure:

fruits

vegetables

low-fat dairy products

whole grains

beans

nuts

fish

lean meats

poultry.

In
a follow-up trial, this diet was compared with one closely resembling
the average American diet, and both diets were further divided into
three sodium levels: high (3,500 mg/day), moderate (2,400 mg/day), and
low (1,500 mg/day). More than 400 volunteers followed their assigned
diets for 12 weeks, changing their sodium intake every four weeks.

Across
the board, less sodium intake led to lower blood pressure. The DASH
diet with sodium restricted to just 1,500 mg per day worked best for all
participants. And for people with hypertension, it was almost as
effective as medication.

The
researchers concluded that we could all benefit from reducing our
sodium intake. But the study did little to quell controversy over the
issue. Critics charged that it was too brief to justify a general
recommendation, and they warned of health risks from insufficient sodium
in the diet. Proponents say that's unlikely, because most human beings
don't even need as much as 1,500 mg a day for good health. Of course,
this 12-week study couldn't predict the impact of reduced sodium intake
on the risk of cardiovascular disease down the road.

A
2007 follow-up study to the Trials of Hypertension Prevention (TOHP)
provided a longer-term perspective. The original TOHP study involved two
randomized trials of lifestyle interventions conducted in the late
1980s and early 1990s. A team led by Harvard researchers tracked down
the original TOHP participants and found that those who had permanently
lowered their sodium intake to between 2,000 and 2,600 mg per day and
continued to watch their salt intake had almost 30% fewer cardiovascular
events, including death, in the following 10 to 15 years.

The
TOHP trials didn't require drastic dietary changes. Instead, the
volunteers learned how to look out for hidden salt and avoid it. Those
who were able to reduce their salt intake by one-third to one-half
teaspoon per day reaped the cardiovascular benefits.

One size doesn't fit all

The
controversy about universal salt restriction will probably continue. As
in most health matters, one size doesn't fit all. How salt affects your
blood pressure and health depends on many things, including your:

genes

age

race

medical conditions.

What to do

If you're under age 50, your blood pressure is in the healthy range (under 120/80 mm Hg), and your health is good,
you have little reason to worry about your dietary sodium intake, at
least for now. Still, try to limit it to no more than 2,300 mg per day.

The
risk for high blood pressure rises with age, so you'll do yourself a
favor if you wean your taste buds from a yen for salt. Research has
shown that people who slowly reduce their intake find that they
eventually prefer less salt.

If you're older, obese, African American, or have diabetes,
you may be salt-sensitive. Most experts agree people in these
categories should cut back. Keep your sodium intake to less than 1,500
mg a day.

If you have hypertension, prehypertension, kidney disease, or heart failure, keep your sodium intake to less than 1,500 mg a day.

If you're hypertensive or prehypertensive or just want a healthy eating plan, consider following one of the three diets that were tested in the OmniHeart trial. The first is the DASH-like diet explained in this PDF
published by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The second
was high in unsaturated fats, and the third was high in protein. (See www.omniheart.org for specifics.)

Results
showed that all three diets lowered blood pressure, improved
cholesterol levels, and reduced the risk of heart disease. (The
high-unsaturated-fat and high-protein diets improved cholesterol levels
and blood pressure even more than the DASH diet, which was higher in
carbohydrates.)

The
health benefits of these eating plans can't be attributed to any single
ingredient—the magic is probably in the mix—but one reason they work is
that they're rich in potassium. Potassium has been shown to be
beneficial to blood pressure.

Whatever
diet you follow, make sure it includes plenty of fruits and vegetables,
which contain little or no sodium and are an important source of
potassium. Potassium-rich choices include bananas, orange juice,
cantaloupe, spinach, avocado, and sweet potato.